Sewing
by fowl68
Summary: The Martel that Yuan had rarely spoken of wouldn't be proud of what her friends, her family, had done in her name. Botta wondered how Yuan could stand it.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything!

**Author's Note:** I saw a man carrying a gorgeous shawl the other day at work. His wife was trying some things on, so he was holding it for her. But that's how I got the idea for this.

I went to see Big Hero 6 again yesterday. That movie is honestly heartbreakingly wonderful. I've got a few vague ideas in the works for it.

* * *

><p><em>We are only human and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.<br>-George RR Martin_

* * *

><p>Botta was the only one who could enter Yuan's office without knocking. Sometimes, having that privilege wasn't a blessing.<p>

"Sir?"

Yuan glanced up, no surprise on his face. Well, there wouldn't be. The seraph had incredible hearing and eyesight; even the stealthiest of the Renegades—of which Botta certainly wasn't a part of—couldn't sneak up on him.

In Yuan's hands were a large piece of patterned cloth and a sewing needle. That was what had made Botta stop short in the doorway. "Is there a problem, Botta?" Yuan prompted.

"Oh." He'd momentarily forgotten why he'd come up here at the sight of Yuan doing something so…domestic. "Yes. There was an interesting development when we tried to assassinate the Chosen."

A messenger had come to tell Yuan about the failed assassination already. But he liked hearing these things from Botta; he was good at noticing details that others wouldn't. Yuan set down the cloth and needle, giving his second-in-command his full attention. "Interesting in what way?"

"Kratos was there. Posing as a mercenary guard for the new Chosen."

Yuan hummed in interest, folding his fingers in a steeple. "The fact that someone was sent to guard her isn't so strange—it's been a long time since a world regeneration journey was actually completed. The worlds are out of balance. But for Yggdrasill to send _Kratos_…"

"How close is her mana signature to what Cruxis needs?" To Martel's, but Botta tried to avoid saying her name around his leader. Four thousand years was a long time, but even that many millennia couldn't make heartbreak go away.

"Very close," Yuan murmured, his mind going two miles a minute. "But that's not why it's Kratos. He's being tested."

"Tested?" Botta repeated. "In what way?"

"His loyalty is in question." The seraph leaned back far enough so he could see outside the window from the corner of his eye. The powerful Triet sun was a balm to someone stuck inside. "After what happened with Anna and Lloyd…Yggdrasill needs to know if he's gone soft or not."

"Kratos? Soft?" Botta had met Kratos once or twice. The man didn't seem like he could ever go soft. Yuan had told him of the woman from the ranch who Kratos had fallen for. Experiment A012. Anna Irving. And then, almost a year later, Yuan had told him—with eyes distant, showing every minute of his age—about Kratos and Anna's newborn child. _(But love isn't going soft, this Botta knows. Love is an incredibly powerful agent of chaos. After all, look at all that two men and a boy had done for the love of Martel)_

Yuan's lips tilted into a slight smirk. "It's not as absurd an idea as you think." He could still remember the days when Kratos cringed away from a raised weapon or fist and preferred to run rather than fight.

But those days were long gone.

* * *

><p>The days when the Renegades went to market were days for fun. There were Renegades of all ages, of course. The younger recruits often had their siblings, the older ones with their children because there was no place for them in the world to be safe if they were on the run from Cruxis. Those days, the children ran through the streets of Flanoir or Triet, chasing each other and reveling in open air; people and sights that they didn't see every day. At least in Triet, they could play in the shade of the base. The weather was entirely too cold in Flanoir to let the children stay out for more than a few minutes at a time.<p>

The adults enjoyed the break from stress and work and Botta liked seeing them laugh and drink. Not that the bases were serious places, but they had so much work that it was difficult to even take a few moments to breathe, let alone find time to visit with friends working in other departments, to chat over a quick coffee break.

As second-in-command, Botta had the list of things that the base needed for the next few weeks and he would get those first. Several large bags of rice and pasta—things that didn't spoil and could be cooked in bulk—some fresh vegetables, salted meats. Things to make stews that could feed a lot of people.

After he would buy those, he'd head to the bookstore. He could still remember a few decades back, before he joined the Renegades, when he'd been living in Palmacosta, poor as dirt in a shed behind the Academy because they needed a janitor. He'd worked for the shed to live in and a meal at the cafeteria every day. It had been worth it.

But he'd never been able to stop himself from spending extra time cleaning the Academy's library, occasionally pulling books from the shelves. His reading was slow and clumsy back then. His mother had taught him how, when he was a kid, but that had been a long time ago and he never had time to practice.

_(The day Yuan comes to Palmacosta, there is a yard sale going on in the neighborhoods. Botta has the day off and he has bought two books with his meager paycheck for the week—and he won't be eating more than the one daily meal at the cafeteria this week—and he is trying to read out loud to himself, sitting on some steps, sounding out the words he doesn't know—which are most of them. Yuan must have heard him and sits beside him on the steps. After a moment, he says the word that Botta is having trouble with and tells him what it means._

_He offers him a job that day too. As a rebel, if he's willing to learn to read better, to learn technology. Botta takes the offer greedily, thankfully. It's only once he knows Yuan better that Botta wonders if Yuan had seen something familiar in him)_

So now, he went the bookstore and will sit with his back against a shelf, the canvas bags of supplies beside him, reading anything that caught his interest. He would stay there until the sun began to set, when the Renegades would take their hauls back to the base. Oftentimes, he'd buy a few books to keep himself occupied until the next market day.

Across the street from the bookstore in Flanoir—the one he much preferred. Sylvarant, as the diminishing world, had far fewer variety of books—was a seamstress. Botta had seen it a hundred times, but never had he seen Yuan there. He was exiting, in fact.

"Sir," Botta greeted. "Found everything you needed?"

Yuan glanced at him; Botta was good about not crossing lines. He hadn't asked about the sewing needles or the new spools of colored string that were poking out of his cloak pockets. "Yes. And you? What books did you find?"

Botta explained what he knew of the books he'd bought and what had made him choose them. Some people would have been bored with the conversation—actually, a lot of people in the past had been—but Yuan debated points with him and asked to borrow one of them after he was finished.

* * *

><p>His hands carefully twisted and knotted the wire and string, mind pleasantly blank. Botta was aware of someone sitting to his right and it took a moment to unfocus and to allow his senses to broaden again. Yuan was leaning forward, not quite touching, Botta's projects.<p>

"Do you enjoy fishing?" Yuan asked.

"Not personally, no. They won't break if you touch them. Lures are built decently sturdy, after all."

Now that he had permission, the seraphim picked one up, tilting it this way and that to study its design. "So you don't like fishing, but you enjoy making lures?"

Botta knew the paradox of his predicament. "My father was a fisherman. My grandfather was a fisherman. I come from a family of them. My father taught me how to make the lures, how to catch the fish and clean them, which ones were best for eating and which ones should be thrown back. They taught me the songs that Undine likes because when she's displeased, she capsizes the boat." Yuan sat patiently, watching him. "I didn't like that life. I wanted more than that, but I didn't have a whole lot of skills. When I could, I would make lures to sell them, but in Palmacosta, anyone who needs lures can make them themselves. So after my parents died, I left that life and I haven't looked back."

"And you still make these." Yuan set the lure back down on the table gently.

"It's good for dexterity. And when we have our market days, I sell them to the traders."

Yuan hummed in understanding. "That entire life is alien to me. I didn't see an ocean until I was a teenager. My people were sheepherders."

"Would you like to learn?" Botta asked. "How to make a lure?"

There was an expression in Yuan's eyes that he couldn't read, but finally, Yuan said. "Alright. Who knows when it might come in handy?"

Botta chuckled. "And who said old dogs can't learn new tricks?"

Yuan proved to be a fast learner and as he finished off a knot, Botta said, "Fishermen are full of superstitions—all sailors are, I suppose. One of them is that, before you cast a line, you should name the bait on your hook after someone you loved."

"Past tense?" Yuan noted thoughtfully. "Is it to say goodbye?"

"No. If the person you name it after loved you in return, you will catch the fish."

Yuan leaned back in the chair, twisting his lure around in his fingers. _(He has so very few people to name lures after. Three. Only three. Well, two now. She's dead. He has to keep her firmly in that category. And it's a large category, his dead loved ones. He has put friends in that category. So many of them. And she's there, sitting with them. Waiting for him to join them)_ "Fishermen were romantics?"

"Oh sure. There are plenty of songs about their lovers on shore, waiting for them. Or how they fell in love with the sea. Sirens beneath the ocean calling them in the voices of the ones they loved most."

"So what happened to you?"

Botta returned Yuan's smirk. "I told you I wasn't meant for that life. My sister liked to joke that I was adopted."

"You have a sister?"

"I had two." Botta went quiet, eyes dropping. "One was living in Luin, with her husband. They were killed when the Desians attacked. And my other sister was killed in Palmacosta. By humans."

"I'm sorry." The absolute sincerity in Yuan's voice made Botta look up. He didn't know why it was so surprising. Yuan had lost loved ones too. And he had a particular soft spot for women. Of course he would understand.

"There's nothing I could've done. Either time." Botta bit his lip. "My sisters were stubborn. I asked Sirin not to go so far away. But Luin had been her dream. A city of hope. So she went. And Lumari was…not an accident. But unpreventable. She'd gone to get groceries." _(And she'd never come home. Botta remembers searching the streets for her, fearing the worst. Hoping for the best, that she'd simply gotten sidetracked. But no. He finds her in an alley two blocks away from the market. Her blood runs into the grooves of the cobblestones. Eggshells are scattered and her eyes are unseeing. He will never be able to unsee her face)_

"Even if there's nothing you could have done," Yuan began slowly. "That doesn't change that it feels there was." He got to his feet, slipping the lure in his pocket. "They'd be proud of you. Of all you've done."

Botta sat there long after Yuan left. Long after some of the others came round to fetch him for dinner and again in case he wanted leftovers. He sat, remembering his little sisters' faces against the bright Palmacosta sun. _(They'd be proud of you…)_ He thought of Martel and what he knew of Yuan. Of all the seraphim. And they couldn't even say that about themselves. The Martel that Yuan had rarely spoken of wouldn't be proud of what her friends, her family, had done in her name.

Botta wondered how Yuan could stand it.

* * *

><p>Botta was searching for a file—a very old one, under many carefully done preservation spells—on the Mana Cannon. Their spies in the Asgard Ranch had heard Kvar mentioning it. Yuan's fist had gone white-knuckled at the name and that was enough for Botta to know the gravity of what Kvar was doing. <em>(Yuan doesn't talk about the past. As a rule. If it becomes necessary to the mission, then he shares, but otherwise, nothing. Botta has known enough soldiers and militiamen to recognize the signs of trauma; Yuan exhibits most of them)<em>

They really needed to get copies of these files into their computer system, Botta thought as he flicked through filing cabinets and dug through boxes. He checked every desk in case someone had already pulled it for research.

The second drawer on the right hand side of Yuan's desk didn't contain files. It contained that patterned cloth and several differently colored spools of thread. Botta carefully picked up the cloth. It was a shawl, he realized, now that it was unfolded. Beautifully patterned with dark pink and bright blue flowers. It was edged in thin stripes of green, red and blue. The material wasn't fine, like silk, but cotton, worn so often that it had become soft. The cloth, however, was incredibly threadbare and thin. When Botta looked a little closer, he realized that the stitching was uneven in many places from repairs. Yuan's repairs.

_(There is only one person that Yuan has a keepsake of. Well, keepsake_s,_ now that Botta has found this shawl. It has to be Martel's. He can't imagine anyone else that Yuan loved enough to continuously repair something that no one is using)_

Botta carefully refolded the shawl and placed it in the drawer. It wasn't his place.

* * *

><p>"Sir, to be entirely frank with you—"<p>

"Because you've never done _that _before," Yuan said dryly.

"Rodyle's insane. What were you thinking, having him as a Grand Cardinal?"

Yuan twirled a sewing needle absently in his fingers. The shawl and spools were nowhere to be seen, but Botta knew that they were likely still in the same drawer. "He got results. Sanity isn't really a big attraction on the Cruxis résumé . What's he done?"

"His entire base is designed with a fail safe."

"And that's insanity?" Yuan asked because, after all, their own bases had fail safes and a veritable labyrinth to get through.

"A flood. He opens all hatches and lets the sea take all the evidence of what he's been doing with the Crystals, the Angelus project in Tethe'alla…"

"A rather dramatic solution. Efficient though." Yuan could admire that, even if Rodyle, like most of the Grand Cardinals, felt oily and untrustworthy every time they spoke. Botta still looked upset. "There's more?"

"Dragons, Yuan." Botta usually never said his leader's name without a title attached—a title that the Renegades had willingly put there. Yuan didn't mind one way or the other if he had a title or not—but Rodyle scraped his temper the wrong way. "In the blueprints for that ranch, he has an entire caged facility meant for keeping dragons."

Yuan made a sound of interest. "He used to be a dragon trainer and breeder, in the mountain regions down by Altamira. His family was fairly poor. I always had the impression that he would want to distance himself as much as possible from his roots."

"Your past never entirely goes away," Botta pointed out. "Knowing what he does about dragons gives him a distinctive edge over the other Cardinals."

"Yes, it does. He just got there too late. Pronyma's skill with dark magic is a rare thing. With the power she has and the way the Chosen at the time was going—Yggdrasill thought it best to keep her closer to our organization. She could've been a real threat."

"Do you still want us to infiltrate that ranch?" Botta asked. "I wouldn't want to take many men in there with me with that threat level."

"It doesn't take that much to infiltrate that ranch." Yuan set the needles down, leaning forward on his desk. He started sketching something on a spare piece of paper. "The dragons and the flooding are fail-safes, not defenses. That ranch is so well-protected because of its natural defenses. Not many people can make it out there. But inside the ranch, things aren't as difficult. It's just a strange setup in order to fit it within the land mass; much more cylindrical."

Botta leaned forward to see the rough sketch of the ranch's defenses. Yuan had an incredible memory, but Botta had been studying the real blueprints for days now. There were more than a few discrepancies. "There're another floor here," Botta pointed out. "The corridors are particularly short in that part of the ranch."

Yuan adjusted it accordingly. "Okay. So if you manage to get in, the information will naturally be in the center. Towards the top. Here, beside his beloved dragons."

"Rodyle is too careful. He monitors who goes in and out of his ranch carefully. There's only one way in. Unless we feel like airdropping into a dragon's nest."

"You've got an excellent point." And Yuan didn't want to risk his people solely for information.

"We still need that information. The Mana Cannon," There it was. The instant clenching of Yuan's fist around that pen. "Is too dangerous to let Rodyle roam with it."

"True. But there are other ways to get that information. I can do a walkthrough of the ranch, get it then."

"Rodyle hates you," Botta pointed out. "He wouldn't let you roam through that ranch without walking beside you every moment."

"No. But there are people that Rodyle would be…elated to see." Yuan met Botta's eyes. "Lloyd and the others. His Angelus Project, that girl who stopped aging." Yuan knew her name. Presea Combatir. He knew about her sister, about Regal Bryant's involvement with him. But it was easier to distance himself from it.

"She's his pawn."

"She is capable of more than that. The Exsphere wouldn't have evolved like that otherwise."

"It feeds off base emotions. She lost her father, her sister. Was an experiment. I've read the records of the Angelus Project in Tethe'alla. That girl's Exsphere was evolving at an exponential rate and she's been through enough for it."

"Yes, it was." Yuan's left hand flipped a sewing needle over his knuckles, back and forth. "Kvar's progress with Anna was incredible. A Cruxis Crystal was forming inside her body when Kratos freed her. Kvar found the right mixture of suffering and chemicals to accelerate the process. But it takes a certain strength of character for someone to survive the kind of suffering that evolves an Exsphere into a Cruxis Crystal. That girl, Presea, was young enough to have faith in adults when she found Varley for that Exsphere. But in the sixteen years since then, while her body hasn't aged and her conscious mind is agreeable to Rodyle, her subconscious will fight it.

"Rodyle wants a true Cruxis Crystal. Not a half-finished one like hers or Lloyd's. Tethe'alla's Chosen doesn't have his Crystal on him. He has another Exsphere, one of the ones we gave them. His Crystal is with his sister. So he will go after Sylvarant's Chosen instead. She's a trusting sort; she won't mistrust Presea. It will be very likely that Rodyle will get her to bring the Chosen to a designated place so he can get the Crystal."

Botta shook his head. "Lloyd and the others won't like that. They've already been betrayed by Kratos. Forgiveness is hard to find after something like that."

"For people like you and I, perhaps. But for Lloyd, he lives in the gray area."_ (Like his father always has. Good and evil aren't opposite sides of the coin. Both exist in everything)_ "Alfrin in Sybak sent a message. Lloyd and the others have been looking into mounts for the Cruxis Crystal."

"Lloyd has that kind of knowledge?"

Yuan twisted his lips into a bitterly ironic smile. "The man who raised him is a dwarf. Incredible coincidence, isn't it? The only race able to work metals like that, who knows about Exspheres and their properties more than we do."

"Does it make you believe in a higher power?" Botta asked. "Because I almost do."

"Hm. No. We used to worship the Spirits as higher powers. They're not. They're just as fallible as we are." Yuan set the sewing needle down. "Lloyd will help cure Presea because that's the kind of person he is. And then they go after the Chosen."

"Where are you going with this?" Botta could usually follow his leader's train of thought, but this time, it was beyond him.

"Rodyle will get away from them. He is not a fighter. So they'll go after him. Right to his ranch. But they won't know how to get there."

"That's where we come in," Botta finished. "They create a distraction for Rodyle while we get the information."

"Exactly." It was the safest option.

Botta nodded. "Okay." Not that Yuan needed permission to order this mission. If Yuan ordered it, Botta would go ahead with it. He believed in Yuan's plans, in his rebellion. But Yuan was better than that. Yuan listened to his people, valued their opinions. It was part of what made him such a good leader. A leader worth following.

* * *

><p>Over the years, the Renegades had learned that there were a few days a year that you didn't bother Yuan with anything that wasn't life-threatening. They didn't know the relevance of those days, but they knew they happened. Sometimes, Yuan wouldn't even be on the base on those days and that's when it was easiest.<p>

This year was worse. If Botta had to hazard a guess, he would say it was because of Lloyd's group and all they had done. All the memories that had been drudged up. And after four thousand years, Yuan had lost his ring. Somewhere. He'd asked Botta to keep an eye out for it on the bases, but he doubted it would be there. He retraced his steps out in the world, but no luck so far.

The Renegades took turns cooking, in general. Some people weren't allowed to cook for the safety of everyone involved. Tonight was Fiahn's turn. He'd been born and raised in Triet and he cooked spicy and warm he tended to make too much food. Portion control was not in his vocabulary. So Botta scooped up a plate of curry with rice and some of the vegetable turnovers touched with pepper before going up to Yuan's room. Not his office, though often, it seemed to double as that.

Botta knocked twice out of politeness, balancing the plate carefully. No answer. Not that he expected one. He went in anyway.

Yuan's eyes darted up to meet his. He was sitting at the window, the shawl draped over his lap, sewing supplies nowhere in sight. "What is it?" he asked bluntly.

"Fiahn made dinner," Botta said, setting the plate on a nightstand. "Figured you might want some."

"I don't."

Shocker. Botta wouldn't leave, though. Not yet. His eyes slid to the shawl, with its different string thicknesses and the repairs that were just this side of the wrong green or blue. "…That was hers, wasn't it?" He almost said 'sir' at the end, out of habit, but right at this moment, Yuan was not his leader, was not his superior.

Tension sang in Yuan's shoulders. He didn't answer. Didn't even tell him to leave.

"It's lovely," Botta said. He wasn't even lying. The flowers interwoven with ivy were elegant, the patterns simple, but lovingly detailed. "Did she make it?"

_(Martel sucking on a finger that she's pricked _again_ with a needle. "I don't think I'll ever get the hang of this." _

_Yuan laughing gently as he inspects the spare cloth that she's practicing her stitches on. "You can put a person back together, but Spirits help any shirts that come in your path."_

_She shoves him lightly, playfully. "That's what I have you for.")_

"…no," Yuan murmured. "She never could sew."

Botta had heard very few things about Martel in over ten years that he'd been with the Renegades. The few things he'd heard could have described a goddess. But this was the first real detail. She couldn't sew. She hadn't been perfect. Of course she hadn't. But sometimes, he was afraid that Yuan and Kratos and Yggdrasill could only remember her that way.

"So where did that come from?" Botta nodded at the shawl.

Yuan's left thumb crossed over to rub at the pale strip of skin on the fourth finger of his left hand where he'd worn a ring every day for four thousand years. The gesture was automatic, even if his thumb recoiled the instant that it felt warm skin instead of cool metal. "…it was a wedding gift. Camellias, dahlias, irises, roses." Yuan's right hand ran over the stitched flowers as he named them.

Botta didn't reply. Didn't even really know what to say to that. In truth, he expected Yuan to kick him out, like he had the first years before they'd all learned to leave him alone. But this year had been so different and Yuan didn't kick him out.

After a long silence, Botta found a question that he was almost positive wouldn't get an answer. "What's today? Why is it important?" He had a few guesses, but he wanted to hear it from Yuan.

Yuan's jaw clenched._ (It's easy to pretend that he's perfectly accepting of the different races. And in a way, he is. But he's not like Kratos, who can narrow his hatred onto people, not even seeing race. He's not like Kratos' son, who can forgive so easily. There is a part of him that still hates humans, will always hate humans, for what they took from him.)_ "…our anniversary."

His guess had been right. Botta stood to leave—some things should be grieved and remembered in private—but then, there had been four thousand years of grieving alone. "It's my shift on guard," Botta told him. "But there'll still be plenty of people downstairs for dinner. They'd be happy to see you."

It was just an offer. A reminder that Yuan wasn't alone anymore. His family wasn't confined to an insane boy and a broken man. It had expanded. The Renegades, all of them, were behind him, but not just for the mission. They'd all learned to live with each others' quirks, celebrated birthdays and weddings and held each other together at the funerals. And Yuan was part of them. He'd made them this family and he was stuck with them. For better or worse.


End file.
